Why We Garden

If you wonder why you garden—and this tends to happen at times when the weeds multiply and the black spot invades—then sit down in your garden after dinner. Though the world may be winding down indoors, with dishes cleared away and a good book beckoning, outside, the garden is abuzz with activity.

Pollinators energetically make evening rounds, visiting all your plants. They don’t know weeds from prized peonies; they’re happy with your garden. So, you haven’t tidied up plants in that one problematic garden bed? They don’t care. They love what your garden offers.

Bunnies, brave enough to enter onto the lawn, nibble at clover and perhaps a few other plants… but oh, are they sweet. A bird does some last-minute “shopping”, going from place to place in the garden to seek out a little water, take a few blades of grass for a nest, and savor the last berry of the day. A golden glow illuminates everything, causing the black spot on your roses not to show… some pruning later on will fix things up, but no need to worry right now….. This is a world you’ve helped to create. This is why you garden.

Gardening isn’t easy. Plants often are… easy to care for. But there’s a certain time in summer when weeds do seem to appear out of nowhere, grow larger than most carefully selected plants, and create work. There’s a time, after a great flush of flowers has been enjoyed, that black spot or rust or powdery mildew appears on a tree or some of your favorite plants—plants that looked fine just the day before. These minor plagues can be avoided, but sometimes we don’t know what’s coming next, and these things appear. They sometimes make us wonder if caring for plants is worth it—they make us wonder why we garden.

Gardening is, in a big way, for us… for human enjoyment. We love to look at our favorite plants, added in multiples to a garden bed for big visual impact. We love floral and herbal scents: maybe it’s the scent of Lilacs or Irises or Lavender. And we love the accomplishment of taking flat and empty land, inhospitable land that seems to be nothing but rock or heavy clay, overgrown land... whatever the case may be… and mapping it out, planting it up, and turning it into something amazing… a curve here, a water feature there, a pairing of plants that will offer contrasting colors to make a bold statement in yet another area. We love this stuff. This is gardening. But gardening isn’t just for us. The pollinator, the bunny, the bird: Your gardening has many more beneficiaries. 

At times when gardening gets hard—and each summer, it will—just remember all the others who benefit from your dedicated gardening. Gardens create safe havens for animals, food sources, sources of water, nesting materials, and much more. The variety of plants you add to your garden, the architectural features you build, the way you water regularly—all this creates a rich world. Your gardening has a purpose.

Why do you garden? Go out in the evening and check things out. You’ll know right away.